Between the Campus Center and the Campus Store on Santa Barbara City College's Cliff Campus there is a culinary building with two dining rooms. This month the smaller one opened its doors again. The JSB Café serves weekday lunch to students, staff and anyone who walks in from off campus. Chef Roberto Lopez Carrillo directs it, and culinary students do the cooking.
The café is the comeback. Next door, the John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room has its own calendar. It runs as a course for advanced students during the spring semester, and SBCC will post its 2027 dates in late February. If you want both rooms in your year, you'll be watching two different clocks.
The room that was actually dark
SBCC announced on October 7, 2026, that the JSB Café was "now open and ready to serve students, faculty, staff, and members of the community." Superintendent/President Dr. Erika Endrijonas called the reopening "another milestone for SBCC in the recovery from COVID-19" and said it adds "another community resource at our Cliff Campus."
KEYT reported that the café had been shut through the pandemic years and then again while the department was remodeled. That remodel turned the kitchen into a classroom built like a working restaurant. Students learn a specialty there and then bring it into the café. Chef Lopez told the station that some students who start in the bake shop "decided that they actually want to switch careers and get into the kitchen 100%," and some go the other direction.
So the people serving you lunch this fall are cooking from lessons taught the day before. In KEYT's report, Chef Lopez said "you can see that they actually learned the actual skills that we teach them the day before."
What lunch costs, and what it buys
SBCC describes the café as a moderately priced, full-service restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, serving fresh sandwiches, salads, daily specials and other entrées. The posted menu breaks down like this:
| Category | Posted price |
|---|---|
| Soup | $7.50 |
| Salads | $11.95 to $15.95 |
| Sandwiches and burgers | $13.95 to $15.95 |
The press release names the dishes the kitchen considers its signatures: the Classic Caesar Salad, Pacific Rim Chicken Salad, Cali Club, El Cubano Panini, Chicken Pesto Panini, Classic JSB Burger and The Vaquero Burger. Sandwiches and burgers come with Cajun-seasoned or garlic-rosemary fries, and you can substitute. Drinks are self-serve.
According to KEYT, an off-campus diner gets a meal "several dollars cheaper than somewhere else off campus." The station's piece also drew the line between this room and a school cafeteria, describing everything as made from scratch. SBCC adds that the menu and what's available can change.
Friday belongs to the pizza oven
The weekly rhythm is short and fixed. From Monday through Thursday the café serves lunch from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. On Friday it opens at 10:30 a.m. and makes only pizza until it sells out. Phone orders aren't accepted yet. KEYT describes the Friday pies as wood-fired.
That gives Friday a different deadline from the rest of the week. Monday through Thursday, the kitchen closes at 1:30. On Friday, the pizza runs out when it runs out, and that could be well before 1:30.
The college's catalog still lists older café hours than the dining page does. The JSB Café page carries the current schedule and is the one to check before you go.
Getting there without a ticket
According to SBCC's visitor parking rules, the college enforces parking around the clock, and every car on campus needs a permit, visitors included. For a lunch visitor, two options matter:
- Up to an hour: the Lot 1-A meter outside the Student Services building sells a 60-minute permit for $1.
- Longer stays: daily permits cost $3 for three hours or $7 for the full day. They're good in Lot 2-C, La Playa East; Lot 3, La Playa West; and Lots 5-2, 5-3 and 5-4, which are levels two through four of the West Campus parking structure.
Put the dashboard permit face up, with the date and time showing. A $3 three-hour permit covers the café's whole 10:30-to-1:30 lunch service. With a $7.50 bowl of soup, that's a full lunch on the bluff for about $10.50 before tax.
The dinner room keeps a spring clock
The John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room shares the site with the café, and KEYT notes its windows face the ocean. Coverage of the reopening has grouped the two rooms together. KEYT reported that the gourmet room had also been closed since 2020 and would be ready in February, serving two nights a week.
The dining room's own record follows the school year. In May 2025, Edible Santa Barbara described the room serving advanced culinary students' four-course menus, with wine pairings, every Thursday and Friday evening of the spring semester. The magazine wrote that reservations "book up fast." It described the room as an instructional lab run by Chef Charlie Fredericks and Maître d' Monica de Alba. Students develop their own dishes, build the semester's menu together, then practice it and teach it to their classmates.
SBCC's Gourmet Dining Room page puts the next season in those terms. The room "will open in Spring 2027, as this is a course with our advanced culinary students," and diners should check back in late February for dates and reservation details. The college hasn't posted service dates or a price for 2027.
"We give people the skills to succeed in a professional environment. We're teaching technical skills with an understanding of the changing marketplace." Chef Charlie Fredericks, speaking with Edible Santa Barbara
How the last season ran
The 2027 terms aren't out yet, but the most recent published season shows what to expect. In spring 2025, Edible reported a prix fixe of four courses with wine for $50, plus tax and gratuity. Service started at 5:30 p.m. for tables of four or fewer. Gratuities went into a shared pot that paid for an end-of-year student trip to a restaurant. The magazine gave Bouchon downtown and the Stonehouse in Montecito as examples. Guests were encouraged to ask questions and give feedback, since the dinner is a class as much as a meal.
The house rules still posted on SBCC's page show how tightly the room is managed. Reservations come by email only. Tables of five and six are no longer offered, and tables of four are limited. You can hold one reservation at a time and ask to be waitlisted for a second, and canceling takes 48 hours' notice by email. For 2027, SBCC says to send reservations to [email protected] and that it takes none by phone. The page calls the cost "TBA," so treat the 2025 price as a reference point, not a quote.
Fredericks told Edible that the newly renovated kitchen "is amazing," that enrollment was up, and that more students were coming back after careers in other fields. SBCC's release puts the café right next to the dining room. The dining room's season starts when the spring course begins and SBCC opens reservations.
Two dates for the calendar
For now, the café is the room that's open, Monday through Thursday from 10:30 to 1:30, with pizza on Friday. The dining room's next opening comes in late February, when SBCC plans to post 2027 dates and reservation details on its Gourmet Dining Room page. Since reservations go by email only and tables are limited, that page is the one to check.
If you'd like a Santa Barbara itinerary that includes rooms like these, from a weekday lunch on the Cliff Campus to a spring dinner reservation, Montecito Luxury Group would be glad to put one together with you. Request a Private Consultation.